"I am very glad and very proud. I’ve had a long relationship with Cannes and this next meeting will definitely seal my love for the Festival and thus for global cinema. Cannes is the open door to all the new ideas of the world. I am thrilled at the idea of being a privileged spectator in it," she said as she accepted Gilles Jacob and Thierry Frémaux’s invitation.
After appearing in Faustine et le bel été by Nina Companeez, César et Rosalie by Claude Sautet and Le Bar de la fourche by Alain Levent, Isabelle Huppert, who studied at Versailles and Paris conservatoires, was noticed in Les Valseuses by Bertrand Blier with lead actors Gérard Depardieu and Patrick Dewaere. She was soon awarded the Suzanne Bianchetti prize as French revelation of the year for her performance in Le Juge et l’Assassin by Bertrand Tavernier. Leading parts followed rapidly, notably in La Dentellière by Claude Goretta and in Violette Nozière by Claude Chabrol, which allowed her to win the first of her two interpretation prizes at Cannes in 1978. In 1980 she starred for Maurice Pialat (Loulou), Jean-Luc Godard (Sauve qui peut (la vie)), Michael Cimino (La Porte du Paradis) and Mauro Bolognini (La Dame aux camélias), in 1981 she worked with Bertrand Tavernier again (Coup de Torchon), for which she was nominated as best actress at the Césars awards and Jean-Luc Godard in 1982 (Passion).
In 2001 she was awarded the feminine interpretation prize at Cannes for the second time for her part in La Pianiste by Austrian director Michael Haneke.
